Lev Tahor: Haaretz's view of controversial group

Haaretz

Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans is trying to get me to repent and become religious. To this end, for the past four months he has been spending hours with me on the phone from Canada. He believes I have a good Jewish soul that somehow got lost, and insists he can, and must, show it the way back. I disagree with him about the soul, the Jewish thing and the path, but do find many other interesting subjects to discuss with him.

Rabbi Helbrans is a bit disappointed that I haven’t become religious yet, but he’s not giving up. He keeps trying at every opportunity. He maintains that discussion of God should not be relegated to the realm of fate, but rather that it is an absolute and provable truth. Therefore, before he would consent to be interviewed, he insisted that I devote 10 hours to listening to him present his proofs. Helbrans declared that if I came to him with an honest desire to explore the truth, I would no longer be able to deny God and his Torah, as given to the Jewish people at Sinai. [....]

'Anonymous' takes down 40+ pedophiles sites

Time

Anonymous has turned its attentions from corporations to pedophiles with the news that the hacktivist group has taken down multiple child pornography sites, including one of the largest known, with account details of its 1589 users being posted online as evidence.

The incident was just part of something Anonymous is calling “Operation Darknet,” a move by the group to eliminate child pornography on the Tor network. Tor, which was originally developed as a way of protecting government communications by the U.S. Navy, now describes itself as “a network of virtual tunnels that allows people and groups to improve their privacy and security on the Internet.” But the privacy and anonymity it offers has been abused by child pornographers, something that Anonymous aims to correct with its new campaign.

Benizri's lying to parole board prompts calls for reform of system

Haaretz

The Israel Prison Service plans to test a treatment program for prisoners convicted of political corruption, according to the head of the Prisoner Rehabilitation Authority, the statutory body that helps set standards for prisoner releases.

The PRA requested that such a program be instituted following the statements made by former Shas minister Shlomo Benizri after his early release from prison last week.

Benizri had expressed remorse to a parole board for the bribery, breach of trust, conspiracy and obstruction of justice he committed while labor and social affairs minister, and was thus marked for early release after serving only two-and-a-half years of his four-year sentence. Immediately after his release, however, he retracted his statement of regret and proclaimed that he'd been framed and was innocent.

Update: Baby’s Death Renews Debate Over a Circumcision Ritual

NYTimes 

Updating this post

Prosecutors are investigating the death of a newborn boy who died in September after contracting herpes through a controversial practice of ritual circumcision, reviving a debate in New York over safety and religious freedom. 

The Brooklyn district attorney, Charles J. Hynes, confirmed on Wednesday that the investigation was continuing, but declined to comment further. 

The cause of death of the 2-week-old boy, who died at Maimonides Hospital in Brooklyn on Sept. 28, was Type 1 herpes, caused by “ritual circumcision with oral suction,” according to the medical examiner’s office.[...]

Rav Kook: Connection of Purim & Amalek to Geirus

  PURIM61.htm 

Rav Kook then quoted the Talmudic statement in Sanhedrin 99b that Timna wanted to marry into the family of Abraham but was not accepted. In the end, she became the concubine of Esau's eldest son. "Better to be a maidservant to this people," Timna reasoned, "than a princess of another people." As punishment for rejecting Timna, the Jewish people were cursed with the eternal enmity of Timna's son - Amalek.

This of course is the connection to the story of Purim, for Haman, the enemy of the Jews, was a descendant of Amalek. Haman's hatred of the Jews and his decree to destroy them in fact originated in the failure to convert his great-grandmother Timna. But this error was redressed in the time of Mordechai and Esther, when "Many of the peoples of the land became Jews" (Esther 8:17).

Moldova votes to require castration for pedophiles

USA Today

 Foreigners convicted of sexually abusing children in Moldova will be mandatorily castrated, according to new legislation introduced Tuesday.

Parliament approved the law by a majority after lawmakers said the impoverished nation was attracting pedophiles from the West. It will become effective July 1.

The new law states foreign and Moldovan nationals found guilty of pedophilia will be chemically castrated, while courts will rule separately on those found guilty of rape.

The move was immediately criticized by the Council of Europe, the pan-European human rights group, which said chemical castration should involve consent, and offenders should be properly informed about procedure while the law should have been preceded by a public debate. [...]

NYTimes looks at Shabbos Elevators

NYTimes

From sundown on Friday until the sun sets on Saturday, many observant Jews refrain from certain activities, including pushing elevator buttons, following a restriction that comes from a prohibition against creating sparks and fires. So in some buildings, elevators are programmed to stop automatically on every floor during the Sabbath. That way, observant Jews can hop right in and, eventually, get where they are going. 

These systems, long a fixture in hospitals as well, can be lifesavers for older people and those with disabilities, and they allow the observant to live on floors that are too high to hoof it. But they also slow down elevator traffic. A lot. [...]

More reliably, said Rabbi Weinstock, an associate rabbi at Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun, many doormen know where the observant people live and will push the appropriate button for them. But it is not acceptable, he said, to walk up to the doormen on a Saturday morning and ask them to do so. (Some rabbis also do not consider Shabbos elevators to be acceptable .) 

Latest chumra for Parshas Zachor & Megila

"These are for the benefit of the public - it is proper to clean one's ears prior to hearing Parshos Zachor"